


Dark Water

by ThanRein



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Disappearance, Divorce, Family Feels, Fluff, Horror, Investigations, M/M, Murder Mystery, Recovery, Terror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 23:16:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16396958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanRein/pseuds/ThanRein
Summary: The small town of Beacon Hills is rocked with the disappearance of one of their own, struggling to find out what happened while the child's family falls to pieces. As time ticks by with no leads, the chance of finding a body instead climbs higher and higher.





	Dark Water

The day will come when you think you are safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth.

 

It was far too hot for late afternoon, in Chris’ opinion. The humidity of the air made it so much worse. As of that moment, sweat was dripping down his back and soaking his shirt and waistband horrendously. He hated it. Very much. It tended to put him in a bad mood.

Which is why he was frowning heavily and not talking to anyone, including his parents. 

At the moment, he was stuck out in the sun, the little kiddie pool his other siblings were in packed full. Stiles had noticed that Chris was hot and was periodically splashing him with the water. It had made Chris’ harsh expression soften a little bit.

Stiles was always the most sensitive of the five Argent children, his twin Allison a close second. He was plagued by ADHD, leading him to have the attention span of a gnat until he found something that interested him and he memorised everything. At that point, Stiles tended to track Chris or one of their parents down and tell them everything that he learned, even if it was something as weird as the history of male circumcision. He’s done that to Chris before. 

Allison was sweeter than Stiles, but she also tended to be horribly blunt with her honesty if she felt that it would help. Which it usually didn’t. The little girl, unlike Stiles who almost worshipped Chris, looked at him as a third parent but worshipped her older sister Kate. It was rather disappointing, but there was nothing that he could do nor would really want to do about it. It was rather cute at times watching the ten-year-old stomp away from a persistent, big-eyed seven-year-old.

Kate was the middle child. She had the twins younger than her and Chris and Victoria older than her. She hated it. She, in turn, had become her idea of perfection. She got good grades, made all the friends, and had ‘the cutest boyfriend’. She wasn’t really dating Derek, because they were too young to really do anything (and if Chris was being honest, the boy didn’t really like Kate that much). It didn’t really stop her from trying or talking about it when he wasn’t around to deny it, though.

Victoria was the oldest of the girls. At fifteen, her personality was going through a cold and aloof phase. She didn’t like anyone, refused to be in anyone’s presence, and refused to talk to anyone should they be in each other’s general vicinity. She did her shit and then proceeded to vanish into her room again.

At the moment, Chris didn’t really know where she was, now that he thought of it. She wasn’t in the kiddie pool with the twins and Kate. A brief glance around and he couldn’t see her around the yard. 

He turned back forward, bracing himself to stand up, only to get a face full of water.

“You little-” Chris sputtered, wiping his face of the water and likely sweat, glaring at a giggling Stiles. He stood up and darted away, out of Stiles’ water range, but didn’t leave yet.

“I’m gonna look for Victoria real quick! Kate, you’re in charge!” he yelled over his shoulder. He snorted as he heard Allison complain that it wasn’t fair for her to never be in charge and that she thought she should be able to watch Stiles and Kate. Chris left them to bicker it out as he left.

He felt his stony features soften as he heard Stiles sooth his bickering sibling and further when he thought of going inside, where it was air-conditioned. Perhaps Victoria was on the right track with staying inside all of the time.

When he opened the back door he was immediately flooded with the cool air conditioning. The sweat soaking his shirt was now cold and he was left shivering.

“Victoria!” he shouted, listening carefully for a response or, more likely, the quiet patter of his sister’s feet as she went to go look for him. She didn’t raise her voice. Or speak much at all. It was kind of frustrating.

There was no response, though. The house sounded empty. Maybe he could squeeze in a call to Peter without anyone getting nosy?

He called out again, heading toward the stairs to hear better. 

This time, he did hear something, but it definitely wasn’t Victoria, unless she had somehow turned into their father in the last few hours. 

Chris could hear the slight yelling as he passed the kitchen. The vents had connected their parents’ bedroom to the little vent above the stove that had a fan to clear out the smoke from cooking. He was the only one who had realised what it really was, but both Kate and Allison had heard the yelling at some point in time. 

“Victoria!” he called out again, this time as he started to run up the stairs. He got to the second floor and he could no longer hear the arguing currently going on on the third-floor master bedroom. 

“Vic-”

“Chris!”

His stomach dropped as he nearly fell down the stairs. He caught himself on the banister and had to freeze once he steadied himself enough not to risk falling over again. 

It took a few moments before he realised that Stiles was talking to him, unable to hear him over the heartbeat pounding away in his ears. 

“What?” he wheezed, his body still panicking.

“Why are mom and dad fighting?” Allison asked, popping around the corner to join Stiles by the bottom stair.

He wasn’t ready for this and he had definitely shown it. “What do you mean? They’re not fighting.” Chris snarked at himself for his oh-so-smooth response to his brother. Anyone older than him would have picked up on how cliche the too-quick reply.

“But we can hear them from the kitchen,” Stiles said, making a wide gesture to point behind him. He looked completely unbothered by the entire thing like it was normal. It made Chris wonder how often Stiles had heard them fighting. 

While Chris had been well aware of the arguments, he’d always been taking out his frustrations with the entire thing by ranting at Peter, letting him know anything and everything. If Stiles had been bothered by this, who was he telling? Scott? His best friend, while loyal to a fault, couldn’t keep a secret for the life of him and would have told the entirety of his own family and every single person who came by and had asked him any prompting questions. Or would have it been Allison? The two, while not really close, still told each other everything and he didn’t want Allison to have been exposed to the fact that her household wasn’t as stable as it used to be and have her stress out about it as well. If Chris was lucky, or unlucky if you looked at it a different way, Stiles and Allison would have heard the screaming match for the first time today.

“They’re just...upset, I guess,” he said eventually, hoping to convince the twins that this was a one-time thing. He winced when he realised that he definitely didn’t sound too convincing.

Stiles and Allison were quiet and they rushed up the stairs, trying to go past him. He flung out his arms to block off their path. They wanted to go up the stairs and to the third floor to comfort their parents. After all, they were ‘upset’, and that meant that Stiles and Allison could be there to make it all better, right?

No. Wrong. Very wrong. 

“Yeah, no, let’s leave them alone, okay, guys? They want to talk this out themselves,” Chris said, resorting to begging after a few seconds of the two trying to rush past him. It wasn’t working. And then it hit him.

“Where’s Kate? Isn’t she supposed to be in charge? Allison, go tell her you’re in charge, now.”

Their eyes got big and Allison rushed down the stairs, screeching for Kate. Stiles nearly fell down the steps in his haste to catch up to her, yelling after Allison herself.

They left the house, slamming the door after them. Their bickering quickly faded and the only sound in the house was the rattling of the air conditioning through the vents and Chris’ own breathing. If he listened closely, he could hear the faint irregularity in the vents.

Chris huffed and took a calming breath. The expanse of his lungs forced his skin against his sweat and water-chilled shirt and suddenly his anger flooded him. It wasn’t toward the innocent children who came inside at the wrong time, but the two adults upstairs who haven’t managed to keep their differences and consequential fights to themselves, instead exposing their children to the fact that there was something horribly wrong.

He stomped up the stairs and knocked heavily just twice before flinging the door open.

His parents jerked and spun to face him, surprise and anger flitting over their features. His mother recovered first.

“Chris! What’s-what’s wrong?” she said, her voice a little choked. 

“The kids are getting hungry. It’s time for food prep.”

“Right, right. I’ll be down in a minute, so why don’t you get everything out for me?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Chris agreed, glancing over to his father.

The man hasn’t said a thing and hasn’t moved a muscle. His face was a forced neutral, but he had a couple extra lines around the edges of his mouth and the corners of his eyes, relaying his tension. It wasn’t a good look.

Chris turned and left, heading back down the stairs to the second floor.

“Victoria?” he called through her door.

“Yeah?” 

“Just checking,” Chris responded, hoping that she hadn’t heard anything and was going to be blissfully unaware. He pulled away from her closed door and went to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, true to her word, his mother appeared and helped him gather the last of the ingredients needed for their meal.

“What all did you hear?”

Chris got noticeably stiffer, but never stopped his actions. “Not much this time, but I don’t know what the twins heard.”

“When were they upstairs?”

“You could hear your voices through the vents. If you listen closely, you can hear dad on the phone from the vent right about above you.”

His mother paused her actions to listen carefully, sighing heavily once she heard what Chris was talking about.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner? I didn’t know you guys had heard it before. I didn’t want you guys to know that-” his mother cut herself off with a sharp huff of breath. She didn’t continue her speech, but Chris understood what she meant and she knew it.

With nothing more to say, Chris went back outside to watch the three youngest of his siblings. He could hear their squabbling as soon as he opened up the back door. The hot, heavy air settled uncomfortably in his lungs and gagged him a bit.

The twins were chasing down Kate, who was quick to sprint up to Chris and promptly start yelling at him.

“What did you do? Why are they saying Allison is in charge? I’m in charge! It’s not fair! Why does she get to be in charge?” Kate fired, nearly slurring in her speed to get everything out.

It didn’t really matter, though; Chris had stopped listening to her and instead watched as the twins bounced in place, looking smug.

¨Why were they inside, Kate?¨

“What?”

“They came inside after me, Kate. You were in charge. You were meant to keep an eye on them. That’s why I put you in charge instead of just bringing them with me. The point was for you to keep on eye on them out here.”

Kate’s eyes got watery but Chris steeled his resolve. He was always a little soft to his siblings’ tears and felt like an asshole when he made them cry. But this wasn’t something to let her off on too easily. She needed to know she was in the wrong.

“I’m sorry,” she whined, knowing that if she talked any more than what she did, she’d just dig herself a hole. That’s what Chris always told her when she cried to him after getting grounded for the umpteenth time by her parents.

Chris melted a little on the inside, but never changed his face nor said anything more. If he did, he’d break down and comfort her and tell her that it was his fault, but since he didn’t she’d think that he was too mad at or disappointed in her to talk to her or even look at her and that would drive his point home more.

He walked away from her and sat back in the lawn chair he was sitting in before he went inside. He grimaced as he sat because it felt like it was still wet from his sweat.

After he has settled Stiles and Allison went back to playing in the pool and occasionally splashing Chris in the face to ‘cool him down’. A quarter hour later and Kate had calmed down enough to feel like she could join in. 

They stayed that way, the three playing and Chris sitting calmly until their mother called them in to eat.

“Go get cleaned up,” Chris gently ordered the three, his lip curling as he thought of their nasty pool-water touching the dishes to serve themselves later. He shuddered but walked into the kitchen to wash his own hands before running upstairs to change his clothes. Stiles and Allison likely changed first, unlike Kate who liked to sit in gross clothes but have her hands and face clean. Victoria was ever-clean and never had to worry about pre-dinner washing.

The meal was rather awkward. Their father didn’t say anything, instead choosing to stab at his food angrily and occasionally mutter under his breath. He’d glared harshly at Kate when she tried to engage him in conversation. Their mother instead tried to liven up the chatter, trying to get everyone up and talking to avoid the uncomfortable silence. 

Eventually, she’d fallen quiet, too. She periodically shot glares at her husband, who didn’t notice because he never looked up from his plate the entire time. One by one, the family finished until Allison was the only person left eating. Plates were collected and brought into the kitchen by Victoria, Chris, and their mother.

Taking care of the dishes was just as stilted in regards to conversation as dinner, but it wasn’t nearly as tense. Victoria had quickly abandoned ship after dropping off the dishes and cleaning off the kitchen table.

“Chris?”

He didn’t respond, simply humming to show he was listening. He kept cleaning off the dishes, even if his mother had stopped loading them into the dishwasher.

“It’s important. Can you look up for a second, please?”

He complied and dropped the brush into the sink, drying off his hands before he leaned back on the counter and gave his mother his attention.

She rocked back on her heels a bit and fiddled with the hem of her tank top. He wondered idly how she was keeping cool in the heat with her pants and zip-up hoodie, but had snapped back to her as she started to speak.

“So...I know that you’ve heard us fighting for a while and that you know that...that it’s not going too great. And we’ve talked about it and what to do and...Look, your father isn’t too happy about it, as you probably figured from dinner,” she rambled, barking out a pained laugh at the last part. 

She hasn’t looked at him yet, instead fidgeting with her fingers and poking at her cuticles.

“Look, we’re going to a couples therapy session tomorrow and we need you to watch your siblings.”

He gave a jerk and nearly fell when he slid along the countertop. 

Whatever Chris had been expecting, that was not it. He’d maybe expected them to split, for her to stay at her mother's for a while, for him to be going out on another trip, for them to be in the process of getting a divorce. He never expected this, but he doesn’t quite know why. Perhaps it was because of his father’s nature. He was never one to really adapt to anyone else, and it was rather surprising that he was willing to work with his wife over their differences instead of just forcing her to bend to his will. Now that he looked back on it, it happened a lot more than he realised. A good deal of the time Chris’ father was just almost overbearingly stubborn with his ideas, usually arguing in circles until his mother submits or just straight-up says no and inserts his status as ‘man of the house’. 

Chris looked his mother in the face and realised that she was waiting for his response.

“Umm...yeah, alright, okay. I can do that,” Chris finally said, nodding numbly.

His mother smiled brightly and she lunged toward Chris, wrapping him up in a hug. It took a few seconds, but Chris hugged her back, allowing her to hook her chin over his shoulder. The bone dug uncomfortably into the muscle, but it was buried under the warmth of the action.

Chris didn’t usually do this touchy-feely crap that his sisters were all about. They hugged each other and their parents and even Chris constantly, slapping kisses on their cheeks and always having their hands on each other. Stiles was similar but tended to stick just to hugging and touching, no kisses. 

Chris, even if at the moment it was a little tough to think about it, was more like his father. They don’t do hugs. They do high fives and slaps on the back. Chris is a little more likely to awkwardly return the hug but hug back nonetheless.

“Thank you so much, Chris! I know that this is a lot to handle and it’s a lot to ask from you to watch all of them, but I know that you can do it even though I know I’m really worried about it because the office is so far away and you’re going to be watching them all day and we’re going to be gone before you guys wake up and-” his mother took a breath, pausing her fast-paced rambling. “This means a lot to me, honey. I just want things to get better and I think this is the best step towards getting there,” she continued, this time slowly and pointedly.

Chris nodded, putting himself together quickly. He had hopes for this. He hoped that if his father was willing to bend on this, he was really willing to make it work and would consequently soften up a bit. It would certainly make life easier on both his siblings and his mother. 

“It’s no problem, mom.” He swallowed a little thickly when he got a good look at her face. 

His mother looked terrible. She had dark bags under her eyes and the slight creases of her face had deepened horrendously. Her bright eyes had darkened and dulled considerably and her easy smiles were clearly forced.

He wondered how he could have missed it. These weren’t things that appeared overnight. This was the aftermath of days, weeks, months of stress. How didn’t he see this sooner? Maybe he didn’t want to see it. It made sense to him. He didn’t want to see his mom be anything other than her normal, lively, ever-youthful self. He didn’t want to see the tired woman who looked older than what she really was standing in front of him. 

“Thank you, Chris. I mean it,” she affirmed, before taking a step back and throwing on a quick smile. “Now go call Peter. I know you’re dying to.”

Chris through a quick grin and then was shoved out of the kitchen by his mother and toward the stairs. He let out an aborted laugh at his mother trying to push him when he outweighed her by fifty pounds and had eight inches on her. He leaned back onto her and she floundered, nearly tipping over under his weight. 

“Stop it, you ass!” she shrieked, hitting his back.

Chris stood back up and darted away, knowing that his mother would try to pinch his sides. She tended to do that as both a form of revenge and to get her children to smile when they were in a bad mood. Victoria gets pinched the most, Stiles a quick second with all of his pranks.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor and peaked into Stiles’ room. 

“Goodnight, buddy, sweet dreams.”

“Night, Chris!” Stiles yelled back from the other side of his bed where he was camped on the floor with his toys. 

Chris left and leaned on another door frame, the door itself closed. “Allison?” he called, knocking on the door.

“Come in!”

He grabbed the knob and pulled, knowing that it didn’t latch. Allison was on her stomach, reading one of her Nancy Drew books. 

“Goodnight, Ally, sweet dreams.”

“Goodnight, Chris, sweet dreams,” she parroted, not looking away from her book.

Chris shut the door and went up the stairs to the third floor.

“Kate?” he asked, knocking on the door.

“Go away, Chris! Goodnight!” she yelled back.

Chris flinched back a bit. While he wasn’t oblivious to how rude she could be, it still stung a bit when she would blow him off or snap at him because she’d rather be texting one of her friends, Derek. He wouldn’t have even thought that they were friends until Kate had shoved her phone in his face and showed off a conversation between them.

“Night,” he replied, a little miffed.

He went to his oldest sister’s room and knocked.

“Yeah? You can come in, Chris.”

He opened the door. “How’d you know it was me?”

Victoria glared at him from where she was perched in her desk chair. “You know exactly how.”

No wonder she gets pinched all the time. But she wasn't wrong. He does know how she knew. Their parents don’t traditionally go to their rooms and say goodnight. Their mother just says it before they go to bed, while their father doesn’t say anything whatsoever.

“Alright, well, goodnight. Sweet dreams, Vic,” he said and turned to leave the room, closing the door behind him when he heard her repeat his words back at him. He smiled and hopped up another set of stairs to the third floor.

Only his bedroom, the master bedroom, and a spare room were on this floor. The walls were rather thin, meaning you could definitely hear something from the rooms, but nothing would be too clear unless it was super loud. So he didn’t really have to worry about his parents listening in on his conversations and phone calls with Peter. 

His mother didn’t really think anything of it, believing that the two were good for each other. His father didn’t even know. He rarely paid attention but Chris knew he would give more than a single fuck if he even got the suspicion that Chris was anything but straight as an arrow. It was to the point that in the rare situation where he was in a good mood and was in the presence of Chris, he’d drag him out to lunch or shopping in the local hardware store and point out the girls he thought Chris should have been leering at and then make fun of the rare guy that he thought ‘looked gay’. 

Chris dreaded the day that his father found out that he was one of those people that ‘weren’t natural’ or were ‘disgusting’. But that was a worry for another day.

As soon as he stepped past the threshold of his room, the door was shut and locked behind him. He pulled his phone off of his dresser and pulled up Peter’s contact, calling the number paired with it.

“Peter Hale,” came the familiar rough greeting. 

“Peter,” Chris breathed. The other’s voice was soothing. He missed Peter. He hadn’t been in contact with his best friend for nearly a week and it had been even longer since the two had done even so much as hold hands.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I’m just frustrated and tired and I miss you.” It was true. He hated having to manage all of his siblings. They were a pain altogether and they were wild with the knowledge that there were no parents around.

“I miss you too, sweetheart, but you’re coming here tomorrow, aren’t you?”

Fuck. no he wasn’t.

“No,” Chris whined, flopping onto the mattress. He had to watch the kids and that meant that he couldn’t leave the house and hang out with Peter like he had planned to and everything suddenly made sense. His mother had been reluctant to ask him to babysit and that was because she remembered that he had plans and was so happy because she knew he valued those plans. Perhaps this would be his ticket to getting a break from them and getting to spend more time with Peter throughout the week.

He told Peter what happened.

“That does seem likely, but you’re going to have to ask your mother instead of your father.”

“Yeah. I think she knows that she’s going to be asked about this. And I think she knows that I’m not bringing you here.”

Peter hummed and the two sat in silence for a second before Chris snorted and rolled onto his side. He fiddled with the phone, pulling it away from his face to put it on speaker.

“What did you say?”

“What’s so funny?” Peter asked, his tone light.

“Kate is going to be mad.”

“Why?”

Chris opened his mouth to respond.

“Ah, Kate wants to see Derek again. Let’s just tell her Derek is off with one of the cousins that day, yeah?” Peter joked but was completely serious. They likely would end up telling Kate that when the moment came.

“Yeah. Hey, Peter?”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t want to skip out on tomorrow. You know that, right?”

“I know, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” Peter crooned. He was always good at comforting Chris. He knew that the taller teen liked the pet names and the verbal confirmation that it was alright and that everything was okay, that he wasn’t in trouble or had someone mad at him. Peter would never say it to him, but he knew that it came from the emotional abuse his father had laid out over him throughout the years.

“Thanks, Peter. You’re the best.”

“I know,” Peter said, the smug grin audible over the phone.

“You’re such an ass,” Chris laughed, hugging a pillow to him and staring at the phone. He could feel the stress melting off of him.

“Yes, my ass is the best,” Peter joked, and, in the lull of silence after Chris’ brief snort, he could hear a quiet, repetitive thunking sound.

“You making food?”

Peter hummed in agreement.

“You realise how late it is, right? It’s pretty close to ten thirty and you’re just now making dinner?” Chris mocked. He knew, however, that Peter and his family had a weird schedule. They always have, at least when it came to their dietary habits. They ate all throughout the day, even with their large meals at breakfast, lunch, an event that was technically unnamed but was fondly called “first dinner” by Chris, and actual dinner (“second dinner”). Peter always had food on him. It was amazing.

“You’re just jealous,” Peter teased. 

“Mm, perhaps just a little,¨ Chris admitted, smiling. “Peter?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I think I’m going to go to bed.” He wasn’t looking forward to the next day, but he knew even Peter couldn’t prevent it from coming.

“Goodnight, and don’t forget that tomorrow is going to be fine. Kate and Victoria can help you out and you can always call me if you need me, okay?”

Chris smiled. “Yeah, thank you, Peter. Goodnight.”

After a few heartbeats, the older teen sighed through his nose and hung up. Chris took it as his cue to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So. Guess what. I have no right to Teen Wolf or its characters. 
> 
> Any and all questions, comments, concerns, and kudos are welcome!


End file.
